Another plea for computer help

[Murmur the Fallen]

So here I am, back again after months away, and already I'm asking for computer help.

So here's the situation:

I have a Gateway GM5664 with and ECS MCP61PM-GM motherboard and two Hard Drives.

Before it was running Vista but I have install XP. In fact, I have installed XP on both hard drives.

This leads to my quandry:

Firstly, the computer when booting up asks me to choose which instance of XP I want to boot up to.

Secondly, using the reports I have from a program called System Information for Windows, I BELIEVE (note emphasis) that I do not have access to both hard
drives at the same time. This is a problem as I wish to use both hard drives at the same time.

Further I am trying to install drivers to this thing, particularly so that I can connect to the internet.

I have installed RealTek High Definition Audio Codec 2.16 that I downloaded from the internet. This does not appear to be acknowledged by my Device Manager,
which has "Audio Device on High Definition Audio Bus" yellow question marked. However I do have sound after installing the audio codec.

Indeed, my device manager has many problems.

Under a Yellow Question Marked Other Devices section, here are the other Yellow Question Marked Devices:

Audio Device on High Definition Audio Bus

Beanbag Emulation Device

Multimedia Controller

OTher PCI Bridge Device

PCI Simple Communications Controller

SM Bus Controller

Video Controller (VGA Compatible)

Further I see no icon for Network Adapters.

And when I try to get to ipconfig by typing cmd, I have to first change the directory it's on as it seems to think that Documents and SettingsUser is
were it's supposed to start. And when I do type in ipconfig or ipconfigall, I get "Windows IP Configuration" and that's it.

So, what do I do? I have absolutely no problem just doing a clean install of XP again, but I am a bit worried about all the rebooting I've been doing. Is
there a fix to this? Am I just screwed?

Sorry for the long rant.

Thanks.

-Murmur

[CattyNebulart]

Just a quick question are the copies of XP from annother computer? (Ie: you had different hardware and then moved the harddrives to this new computer.)

Because it sounds like the regestry information of the hardware is messed up. It's best to do a clean reinstall of XP to fix it, and please keep in mind
that XP needs to be installed on the C drive. Also do a scan of the drives before you reinstall, 2 out of 3 computers I had similar problems with had bad
sectors on the drive, using either a Linux boot CD with the appropriate diagnostic tools or just CHKDSK /r. Just a clean install of windows is likely to fix
the problem, temporarily (one of the computers I did this with worked for about a year before it started misbehaving again) if some parts of the drive are bad.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[Murmur the Fallen]

CHKDSK shows that it's clean. But thanks.

Further, I've solved many of the problems enumerated above.

Yet some problems continue to plague me. Firstly there is the problem of the booting. On and off it either gets stuck on "boot from cd" and/or goes
to DCHP or some damn thing. Or gives me a black screen of death, telling me to do some sort of hardware check. A reboot after some few minutes seems to fix
that but I'm sure it'll happen again.

My main concern is the fact that I would quite like to have my two hard drives shown when I am on the computer, which is to say that I would like to have
access to all of that memory rather than splitting it between two instances of XP. Is there any way that I can do that? Once again, a clean re-install of XP is
no problem.

Thanks again.

[Duane Peters]

Why, exactly, do you have XP installed on both drives? I've never known any reason to have two bootable hard drives with the same OS in any system, and
honestly, that might be the problem.